I think it's the 40th anniversary that makes it appealing to them to release the "first ever!" MLPs.  (Basically the anniversary years ending in 0 and 5.)  At least they're making them a little different.  I would prefer different poses though.

That's also why the RaMC blind bag figures have packaging that implies the movie came out in 1983 . . . Because it would be weird to have a 40th anniversary line and market the special as "39 years old!"  Like . . . it is . . . but to the general public that's going to be like, "Huh?  Then why are you selling it this year?"  But literally the only MLPs who are 40 years old ARE the Collector ponies and they want more than just them for the landmark 40th anniversary.

To me "baby ponies" aren't literal infants, they're more like young kids.  So yeah, I would count those two as baby ponies.

If you look at real horses, they can do so much more than a human baby, like running through a field the day they're born.  So I guess it makes sense that a "baby" pony has the ability to reason and talk very early on.  Even in the backcard stories of the Newborn Twins, they can talk and a lot of times are wandering around on their own.

The "finalized" Fizzy has a metal ball in her hind hoof to keep her from falling onto her raised front hoof.  I wonder if this was another idea they had, to simply put her body in a more stable pose.  I'm glad they stuck with her original pose, though!

Way back in the day, like late 90s or early 2000s, I remember seeing a cel of Scorpan and one of the sea ponies on eBay.  Now I wish I'd bought them!  Also Chanth had a fully colored cel of Baby Glory that was a character model for Escape from Catrina.

MLP Tales cels are common, but with early MLP stuff the studios probably didn't see any value in preserving them.

I think a lot of the G1 Transformers show info you see online, like the animation models and character descriptions, come from the G1 Transformers show bible. Here's the history of that:

Transformers Production Bible

In the late 90s, a fan (Mardhen Bravo) was given a copy of the production bible for the original Transformers show. Whilst not making copies he figured that transcribing the text was okay, which was posted in chunks to Greg Gaub's CybCon mailing list then collected by Jim Walters. Site updates there were abandoned in 2002/2003, with the rest of the material just being posted to the mailing group. Full credit is entirely to them; this page is just an effort to get the text into a convenient, easily searchable format. (Also note that there intentionally isn't any correction of typing mistakes, and that uncorrected mistakes were far, far more common back in the era of typewriters.)

The set has been seen at various conventions, so this very definitely isn't a piece of fan writing -- photocopies and originals of other materials also crop up at conventions and on eBay from time to time, such as the movie storyboards shared by Sam Jones.

So basically this one guy, Mardhen Bravo, is the reason the Transformers info is readily available.

I agree that the MLP community traditionally hasn't paid too much attention to the nuts and bolts of the cartoons. Like I don't remember G1 voice actors getting invited to conventions until the last couple years.  (Five to ten years is "a couple", right?  lol.)  And even then it's rare to see someone from the production side of things instead of a VA.

Edit:  Just googled Wendell Washer and sadly discovered he passed away in July 2022. 

That sounds so cute!  <3

One of my childhood ponies!  I love her. 

The video has so much GREAT info, seriously watch it if you have a minute! 

Yeah, I think the write-in campaign to Basic Fun a few years ago is how they learned about the Celestials!  In the video the Basic Fun rep said something like "We are listening when collectors, people who love the brand, write us notes".  Huuuuge thanks to everyone who wrote in, the community really made this happen!  (Well, the community plus Basic Fun!)  BIG THANK YOU to everyone who wrote in!  We did it!

The girl making the video also mentions that, even though she had a press pass to the event, most companies simply would not let her in their booths and some were rude about it . . . but Basic Fun welcomed her in and gave her a tour and were nice.  Which is an attitude that goes well with MLP and Care Bears. <3

The Basic Fun rep talked about how they are planning on Amazon being the main distributor, but the Target buyer hadn't come buy yet so possibly they would want them too.

The Celestial pony box is a very early mock up, so early that it doesn't even have pictures of ponies on the back.  But this is what the side looks like:

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So, I don't think the finished box will show the white pony four times (unless they REALLY want you to collect only her, lol), I think those are just placeholder pictures.  To me this suggests they will release the entire set of four ponies.

Here's the front of the box, isn't it lovely . . .

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